#i imagine hiryuu as a sort of king arthur situation

[kirayaykimura]

Soo-Won was hiding from a party. His housemates didn’t really need a reason to throw one, but this one was a celebration for the end of fall midterms, which meant more people going harder than an average weekend party, which meant Soo-Won was reading a book in the basement den that was strictly off-limits to anyone not living in the house.

Lili, who had never met a rule she didn’t immediately want to break, was an exception by virtue of being so annoying no one wanted to continue enforcing the rule with her. 

As such, Soo-Won did not try to stop her when she burst through the basement door at - he checked his watch - a quarter to one wearing a clearly borrowed shirt that was about four sizes too big for her. Nothing about anything was of his concern, so he simply continued reading about the history of the King Hiryuu mythology in the Fire Tribe. 

“Midterms are over,” Lili said, making her way over to where he sat perched on the end of the ugliest yellow couch anyone had ever laid eyes on. It had been around longer than anyone in the house could remember and had seen more things than Soo-Won would care to think about while sitting on it. 

“This isn’t for class.” 

“That makes it worse. You know that, right?” She took a seat next to him and asked, “What are we reading?” 

“We?” 

Lili did not dignify his question with an answer. Instead, she draped herself over his shoulder to peek at the page, boneless in the way only alcohol (or really good muscle relaxants) could make one. There was no way she was going to be able to focus on a fairly dry sociological account of one particular subset of the population as wasted as she was. 

“Historical non-fiction,” Soo-Won said, fighting off a smile. If he smiled, she would get ideas, which was bad because Lili was the type of person to move forward without any ideas at all. He absolutely could not let her know that her slight weight slumped into his side was warm and comforting because then she might think it was okay to do it again. Which, of course, it was not. 

“Fine,” Lili sighed. After a quiet moment, she said, “We don’t really believe in King Hiryuu back home. It’s weird that it’s such a big deal in the Fire Tribe.” 

He stood corrected. Even smashed, Lili could keep up with a fairly dry sociological account of one particular subset of the population.

Soo-Won moved to turn the page, but Lili clumsily batted his hand away.

“I‘m not done with the page yet,” she said, impatient and just slightly slurred. 

“Alright,” Soo-Won said. “You tell me when you’re done.” 

“Don’t patronize me.” 

“Are you this demanding with everyone or do you just think I’m a pushover?” 

“Everyone,” she said on a yawn. “You’re not special.” 

No, he knew that very well. Cursed, maybe. Doomed, almost certainly. But he was nothing special. 

“You can turn the page now,” she said. Then, “You smell nice.” 

“And you smell like you bathed in stale beer,” he said as he dutifully turned the page for them both. 

Her normal scent of jasmine and oranges was heavily masked by whatever keg the guys had gotten their hands on this weekend. It was unfortunate. He quite liked oranges. 

“Some doofus spilled all over me. Straight down the front of my shirt. This is Ramaru’s.” Lili plucked at the hem half-way down her thighs. Her jeans underneath appeared to have avoided the spill zone, though there was a stain near her knee that looked like mustard. Soo-Won was pretty sure that was all her own doing, though.

“Ah,” he said. 

They lapsed into silence as they read. Predictably, Soo-Won was done before Lili, and his mind wandered while he waited for her to catch up. He began idly planning the clean-up process in the morning, how warm Lili was, his essay for Politics in the Middle East, how soft Lili’s hair felt against his neck. He bet it would feel like silk if he ran his fingers through it. Also he had stat’s homework that was due on Monday and was only half-completed. 

Yeah, she was definitely asleep, wasn’t she.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and found her eyes closed and mouth fully agape. 

Of course.

What am I going to do with you? he wondered as he gently set his book aside, careful movements designed not to disturb her. He could disturb her if he wanted to, though. They didn’t have the sort of relationship where casual touches were, well, ever present. That was how he preferred to live his life: at a healthy distance from everyone else. It would be totally normal for him to wake her up and push her away. 

He couldn’t, however, bring himself to do it. Midterms had been stressful for her, and she looked more peaceful than he’d seen her in weeks. She did not look good - her cheeks were splotchy from alcohol, some mascara was smudged beneath her right eye, and a strand of hair had attached itself to the gloss on her bottom lip - but she looked relaxed. 

He didn’t want to be the one to take that from her, which was why he held a finger up to his lips when Ramaru opened the basement door moments later. 

Ramaru froze, took in the scene, and whispered, “I was looking for her. Is she okay?” 

“Just asleep,” Soo-Won answered softly. 

“Cool. Party’s dying down. You want me to-” he mimed picking Lili up and carrying her out. 

“It’s alright,” Soo-Won said, almost without thinking. “I’ll take care of it.” 

Ramaru gave him a thumbs up and left as quietly as he’d come. As the door slipped shut behind him, Lili sighed, stirring. That was all the warning he got before her head tipped off his shoulder. She caught herself instinctively mid-fall with a hand slapped against his knee. Her manicured nails dug in as she sat up with a sharp intake of breath, clearly panicked from almost toppling over into Soo-Won’s lap, forcing Soo-Won to lean back as far as he could to avoid being smacked in the nose by the back of Lili’s head. 

“What happened?” Lili asked, looking around, words now horribly slurred from a combination of alcohol and sleep. Waahap’n. 

“Uh,” was all Soo-Won could manage for a moment. Everything had happened very quickly. “You fell asleep.” 

Lili leaned her forehead against his shoulder again and groaned. 

“Room’s spinning,” she said. 

Soo-Won tentatively gave her a pat on the head and said, “There there.” 

The thing was, he used to be so good at comforting people. He knew people, which made them easy to handle. Lili was just…weird, which made him weird in return. He had absolutely no idea how to deal with her most of the time. 

“Gimme five minutes,” Lili said as she lowered herself, this time on purpose, into Soo-Won’s lap, using his thigh as a pillow. Her legs curled up on the other end of the couch, feet tucked up snug against the back cushions. “I’ll go upstairs. Five.” Then, as if it was his fault, she said, “You should be softer.” 

And she was borderline incoherent. Great. 

Looked like he would be there for a while. At least he had a book to entertain him. Before he picked it back up, though, he tucked the strands of hair that were still firmly attached to her lipgloss behind her ear. The thanks he got was a nose twitch. He discovered her hair was, in fact, just as soft as he imagined it would be. 

Well, he thought. This is inconvenient.